What's He Doing Here?
by Ickle-Ronnikens
Summary: Harry Potter can't sleep, he has gone without a warm body beside him for far too long, and he therefore decides to act on it in the only appropriate way that Harry Potter would. Harry/Ginny with Ron/Hermione suggested.
1. Chapter 1

What's he doing here?

Disclaimer - I do not own Harry Potter. The beautifully wonderful JK Rowling owns that pleasure, and we all praise her for it

Harry/Ginny

Summary - Harry Potter can't sleep, he has gone without a warm body beside him for far too long, and he therefore decides to act on it in the only appropriate way that Harry Potter would.

01

After so much travelling, so much exhaustion, he was annoyed with himself that he could not sleep - his bed was warm, and comfortable, and he was wrapped in the sheets as best he could muster - but still sleep eluded him. He felt for the empty space beside him, the space where another body had slept for all of the summer just past, helping him be warm, helping him sleep.

For Harry Potter, life as an Auror was pretty hard - he had been true to his word thus far in helping the Minister for Magic Kingsley Shaklebolt hunt down the remaining Death Eaters since the end of the War, and thus far he and his best friend Ron Weasley had successfully tracked down near on all of those that were left. This very past day, it had been he and Ron who had caught up with a couple who had been hiding down near Kent for several months now, having managed to escape the clutches of every other Auror before them.

A couple of days without much sleep, and Harry had been given a week's pardon to go home and relax, before he was due again to begin a journey to the West where more Death Eaters had been rumoured to flee. And it was during these few days that Harry and Ron had hoped to do nothing else but sleep and eat.

In the bed across from him, Ron had no such troubles sleeping, and was silently snoring with a pair of socks in his mouth that Hermione Granger had given him so he wouldn't snore and wake up the enemy while travelling, and more importantly _her_ when they shared a bed.

But it was another Weasley that Harry lusted over - the small one, with the most fiery and the most silkiest of red hair - Ginny Weasley. She was currently miles away, on the other side of the country pretty much, at Hogwarts with Hermione, both of whom had decided to finish their studies instead of getting into work straight away. Harry admired them for this; he had been pretty sure that it would be quite a while - if in fact ever - before he was able to return to the grounds of Hogwarts, considering everything that happened to him and those he loved there.

But as he struggled out of bed to sit on the end of it and stared out through the window whilst scratching his unshaven face, he sort of wished he was there right now, just so he could see her and touch her and smell her. He reached over for his trunk and rummaged through it as silently as he could, searching deeper and deeper for something... something important. Eventually his fingertips grazed it, and he seized it and pulled it from underneath some old socks.

The Marauders' Map was looking a little worse for wear these days, after surviving so much in Harry's pocket - but its magical properties meant it would never be destined to fall apart, so he was able to tap it with his wand, utter the infamous words, and open it up to find the Gryffindor tower. As always, it was utterly impossible to find one name out of the hundreds of dots that filled such a small place - but after several minutes of staring, searching, he was sure he could see a sequence of letters that spelt out "Weasley".

He stared at it for quite a while, wondering if she was awake too, selfishly hoping that she was; and then he began to convince himself that she was staring out of the window in her dormitory as well, unable to sleep because there was nobody beside her, to keep her warm, to help her relax and get rid of the graphic images from her dreams. But he knew that was silly, they had both had distractions from one another for months now, and although it was quite likely that she missed him, he couldn't see her lose sleep over him.

He folded the map back up and put it aside; glancing over at the clock on his bedside table indicated that it was only just gone midnight, and his stomach wrenched at the thought of staring up at the ceiling for the rest of the night. He stood up instead, pacing the room silently, only Ron's heaving breathing stifled his footsteps, and Harry began to think what he might do, what he must do, to help get to sleep.

In Privet Drive, in the cupboard under the stairs, he used to count sheep - this was a very muggle thing to do, but it often helped him on the dark days, when his Aunt and Uncle and Cousin had been particularly hard on him that day. But that didn't work anymore, and he didn't know why - he had eventually come to the conclusion that the hard days as a unwanted child, living in a cramp space, were nothing compared to what he had faced since then - therefore characterizing sheep counting as child's play.

During his time at Hogwarts, if ever he could not sleep it was usually because of his scar - whilst He Who Could Not Be Named began to rise to power once more, his forehead would burn so badly, that he would eventually pass out from the pain - no counting of sheep was really ever required. It was different now of course - Tom Riddle was gone, the connection had long since dispersed, and though Harry still had that same scar which always pained him, it was now only as pointless as counting sheep was.

But tonight he couldn't sleep because of an entirely different reason - a reason that he was beginning to think could not be correctible so easily.

One more time he looked across at the bed that Ron occupied, his mind racing - by now he had pretty much made up his mind that he had to do it, he had no other choice. He turned away from Ron and began to rummage through his trunk once more - he pulled out some clean jeans, a clean shirt, an old school jumper, his travelling cloak and his shoes - followed by something silky, long and thin and imperceptible.

He hastily got dressed, took his wand from the bedside time, as well as the map that he had placed there earlier and crossed the room to the door. He put his hand on the door knob and carefully turned it, making sure to look down at Ron in case he woke up and started asking questions on where he was going. But Ron merely snorted a little, turned onto his side and continued to sleep whilst Harry quickly snuck out into the cool night air.

Casting a glance of his surroundings, he saw nothing but tall broad trees in every direction - Remus Lupin's lodge was known about by very few, and its location known by even less - it therefore acted as Harry and Ron's safe house from those that might still have the strength to make an attempt on their life. Not that there was much threat - but better safe than sorry, that was the Minister of Magic's mentality - he did not take threats on his employees lightly, whether they be Harry Potter or not.

Harry turned on the spot and disappeared.


	2. Chapter 2

02

Harry reappeared on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, completely unnoticed. The small town, which lived the grounds of Hogwarts, was quiet and the streets were deserted. As Harry pulled his Invisibility Cloak over his head (he had to slouch even more these days, due to it not covering as much as his ankles as it used too) and began to walk forward, the only source of noise was from the Three Broomsticks, which looked quite busy for a Wednesday night.

But this side of the War meant that Hogsmeade was a very safe place nowadays, and Harry supposed that he had never seen it so busy before, because the small village had almost always been in danger, which kept people away. And as he grew closer, the music grew louder, and the chattering stronger - he was unable to stop himself from smiling, acknowledging that it was he, Harry Potter, that had made such good things happen again.

After stopping very briefly, he moved on, Hogwarts now well and truly in his field of vision - but he did not intend to just walk through the front gates; for even he, Harry Potter, saviour, legend and ex-pupil, would not be allowed entry so easily. He supposed that if it were daylight, and he made his presence be known, he would have been carried on shoulders into the Entrance Hall and beyond and all with the Headmistress' full blessing.

But aside from his ego, he did not want that sort of attention this evening - there was only one person whose full attention he sought after, and if he was going to keep it to just her, he would have to sneak in, undetected. And he thought surely he could do that, with his map, his invisibility cloak and the castle asleep and scarcely unguarded, when Sirius Black was able to do it with none of those things, whilst he still had a bounty on his head.

His plan in which he almost always used and almost always had success with: was to make it up as he went along.

First of all, there were seven secret passageways that lead from Hogsmeade into Hogwarts - the ones that lead from Honeydukes, the Shrieking Shack and the Hogs Head were all currently inaccessible, as was the one behind the mirror on the fourth floor - that tunnel had caved in. But three more tunnels existed, very few know them, Filch was one of these people - but it is one thing for him to know of them, it's another for him to expect someone with an Invisibility Cloak that provides everlasting protection appear out of one of them.

The passage behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy was the best one for Harry to use, it would take him to the fifth floor corridor, where there was a passageway/shortcut that would take him to the seventh-floor corridor and around the corner from the Gryffindor common room. He knew there was something he was forgetting, but he figured he would cross any sort of bridge when he came to it.

The entrance to the hidden passageway in Hogsmeade was in an old outhouse that hadn't occupied for decades, and a simple tap of his wand and mutter of the correct incantation, the floor would disperse under his feet and he could climb down a ladder into the tunnel below. Like all tunnels that lead from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts, it sloped down and then back up, meaning nearly half-an-hour passed before Harry reached the other end and felt the statue firmly in front of him.

Pulling out the Marauder's map, he tapped it with his wand and assessed the situation; the Caretaker Argus Filch, along with his cat Mrs Norris, were snooping around on the first floor, and miles away from where Harry would come out; his only other problem, Peeves the Poltergeist, appeared to be far too busy bouncing around in the Trophy room, hopefully he kept up the commotion and took any unwanted attention away from where Harry was.

However, walking up and down the fifth-floor corridor was a name he was unfamiliar with, and undoubtedly a Prefect; it was also likely they had been stationed there due to Filch knowing about the hidden passage and so he had always stationed a guard there. There only appeared to be one, so Harry waited for them to walk to the other end of the corridor before he pushed aside the statue, ducked out of the passage, and pushed the statue back into place.

Without wanting to take any more risks than he had too, he waited for the Prefect to double-back, and then walk away again before he moved. The Prefect in question was a big ugly brute of a boy, Slytherin, with more warts on his face than Harry had time to count; he only had time to stuff his fist in his mouth so as not to laugh out loud and give away his position. But eventually the Slytherin walked away, and Harry stepped out from his hiding spot and darted in the other direction, around one corner and the next.

Eventually he reached the tapestry with which had a shortcut behind and that would take him to the seventh floor - he made sure no one was closing in on him before he pulled it aside and made his way up the spiral staircase, careful to miss the step that his old friend Neville Longbottom used to always get caught in. Before he exited the stairwell, he checked his map again and completely ensured that the seventh floor was completely deserted.

Another Prefect was wandering around the Ravenclaw tower, and appeared to be tracing a pattern that kept quite a ways away from him, so otherwise all was clear. He moved through the tapestry and along the seventh floor corridor, rounding a corner to come face-to-face with the portrait of the Fat Lady - before it even occurred to him that he might need a password, he pulled the Invisibility Cloak off of his shoulders and attempted to wake her.

'Excuse me,' he said as quietly as he could, 'hello?'

It took him several minutes, but eventually she began to stir and grumpily started to shout at him for waking her. He had not prepared for this either, the surrounding portraits also began to wake at the echoing sound of the Fat Lady's voice, shouting at a student for being out of bed so late and for inconveniently waking her up.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' Harry kept repeating, begging for them to be quiet, 'please can you just let me in?'

'Fine!' she shouted finally, before patting down her dress and straightening in her seat. 'Password?'

'Oh-' realisation set in for Harry, such was his eagerness to get in, the thought of needing something so simple as a password had completely slipped his mind. 'I don't know.'

This, regrettably, was also a stupid thing to say - the Fat Lady immediately riled up once more.

'You don't _know_?' she hissed at him, looking outraged, 'you have the tenacity to wake me up in the middle of the night and demand entry without a password? I was having such a wonderful dream, too! That Sir Cadogan was being such a gentleman to me and everything.. what chances do you think I have of picking it up where it left off again? Hmm?'

She looked back down at Harry, who still stood there, a look of disapproval on his face at what she had just said.

'No password, no entry!' she shouted, pointing at him, 'now go away!'

'But I really need too-'

'Go!'

'You must remember me? My name is Harry, Harry Pot-'

'Away!'

Not wanting to attract any more attention to himself, Harry decided to back right away rather than for her keep shouting at him and he threw the Invisibility Cloak back over his head. He doubled-back down the seventh-floor corridor, attempting to rack his brains for an idea as to what to do now - with no password he was stuck, and even if he found out what the password was, it would be a hell of a gamble to wake the Fat Lady again, she would undoubtedly make Filch come running, putting him in an awkward position to explain what he - an ex-student - was doing in the castle in the middle of the night.

Though he was sure there was no way someone with his amount of respectability and influence could be courted over such a little thing like disturbance of the peace, it still made for an embarrassing position, and he began to think that maybe he should pull the plug and leave before it could get any more out of hand. But it pained him to make it this far, to be less than one hundred metres from his goal, only to have to turn around and go all the way back to where he started from.

He had started walking back down the corridor, towards the tapestry and the hidden stairwell that would take him back to the fifth-floor, when something silvery-white caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.


End file.
